


acclimation

by owlvsdove



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-02-19 16:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2395556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlvsdove/pseuds/owlvsdove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine reactions to Jemma's return. </p>
<p>[Spoilers for 2.03]</p>
            </blockquote>





	acclimation

i. Coulson

 

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

He sounds like a disapproving dad. She almost missed that.

Jemma sags, lowering her weapon and giving up the pretense. “I knew you’d find out eventually. I just thought it would be caused by my triumphant return.”

He looks amused. She remembers that expression sitting across from her on a train a lifetime ago.

“You thought you could take down HYDRA single-handedly?”

She grows serious. “I heard Donnie was here. So I went in undercover to try and convince him to leave. But he’s a hard sell. And they kept bringing in more and more gifteds. I couldn’t leave them.” She swallows. “I was hoping to convince them to switch sides.”

“And the higher-ups trusted you?”

“It didn’t really matter if they trusted me or not. No one in the world has more experience with gifteds than me.” That’s what she says because she’s concerned about the real answer. “They think I’m valuable.”

“You are.”

She looks down.

“How many gifteds do you have on your side?”

“About a dozen.” He looks impressed. “But Donnie doesn’t trust me yet. I can’t leave without him.”

He chooses not to comment on that. “We’ll plan an extraction. I promise we’ll get all of them out.” He tosses her a spare comm. “And you.”

“Wait,” she says, reaching under her shirt to her shoulder. “I have something that should help.”

He watches her with confusion until she produces a bandage. She unsticks a small USB from it.

“Really?”

“Who’s going to look under a bandage?”

“Fair point.” He pockets the information before giving her a long look. “Good work, Simmons. You’ll be home before you know it.”

Her responding smile almost breaks through her anxiety.

He turns to leave, and she moves, startled.

“Sir?”

He already knows what she wants.

“He’s okay,” Coulson says.

And then he’s gone.

 

 

 

 

ii. May

 

The extraction doesn’t go as planned, which isn’t that surprising considering their missions rarely do. But they’d had hope for this one.

They lost some of the gifteds. And Donnie.

The emptiness on Jemma’s face is something May has seen before. She went in with pure intentions and left with blood on her hands. May has seen this before.

An overwhelming flood of protectiveness overtakes Melinda, and her stomach tightens as everything goes thickly warm and nightmarish around her. _She does not deserve to feel this_.

Jemma’s not crying, so everyone is sitting warily upstairs on the Bus, going quietly about their business. But it’s time to do something.

“You two,” May says, looking at Trip and Skye, who were not so sneakily watching Simmons from behind a couple case files. “Go man the cockpit.”

They nod, and the room empties along with them. May sits on the couch next to her as she stares forward, places a hand on the back of her head, smoothing her hair like family might.

Jemma starts to cry.

She pulls the girl close, lets her bring her knees to her chest and sob into May's neck. She keeps a hand in Jemma's hair - a weak attempt to soothe her.

“You’re home now,” May says quietly; and she knows that that is not remotely why Jemma is crying or even a legitimate response to the day’s catastrophe, but it’s all she has left that’s true. This feeling, this strangling, shattering feeling, will never leave Jemma, just as it never left Melinda.

But they are home now.

 

 

 

 

iii. Skye

 

“Were you watching me sleep?” Jemma says blearily as Skye’s face comes into view, leaning against the wall across from her bed. May must’ve deposited her there after she’d cried herself out. The clock on the wall says it’s barely dawn.

“I was waiting for you to wake up,” Skye says stiffly.

“Why?”

“Because I want to yell at you.”

Jemma drags herself up to sitting slowly, silently. She blanks herself out and waits.

Skye notices all of this. Her head drops into her hands. “What the fuck happened to all of us?” she mutters.

Jemma doesn’t have an answer. She’s trying desperately to hold onto the present. She can’t slip back into what happened yesterday, not just yet. Not before she's taken care of some things.

“You left us,” Skye accuses.

“Yes.”

Skye’s waiting for an apology and Jemma knows she’s supposed to give one. But she can't make one come out.

“I had to leave,” is what she says instead. “I thought you’d understand.”

“Well, I don’t.”

She swallows, and the words are hard to come by: “I don’t really either.”

“Fitz needed you,” Skye says.

“You needed me,” Jemma replies, because she can’t think about Fitz at the moment.

“Yeah, I did.”

“I didn’t want to abandon you, Skye. I just needed to help Donnie.”

Skye comes closer. “I know you feel bad that you couldn’t save Seth but his death wasn’t your fault,” she says.

“That’s not it. I just had to help him. It wasn’t his fault that SHIELD disintegrated around him. He just needed someone to hold on to.”

“He built a destructive weather machine that he was going to sell to Ian Quinn,” Skye says, like she’s gently breaking the news to Jemma, sitting down on the bed.

“That wasn’t his fault either!” Jemma defends, unseeing. “He was a good kid, a smart kid. He was just misguided! It was Seth’s idea. His best friend convinced him to—!”

And the tender expression on Skye’s face tells Jemma that she’s exposed herself. Completely. Jemma closes her eyes for a brief moment, trying to reclaim something, anything.

“Okay,” Skye says quietly. “Okay.”

Skye’s stance softens slightly, so Jemma pulls her friend in quickly and tightly, just the way Skye had accustomed her to.

“I didn’t want to leave,” she says in Skye’s ear. “I just had to.”

“Just don’t do it without saying goodbye again,” Skye says, squeezing her tighter.

It’s not completely solved. But it’s enough for the moment.

 

 

 

 

iv. Lance

 

“Where are you from, love?” He saunters up to her as she’s fixing her morning tea in the mess.

“Sheffield. You?”

“Kent.”

“Ah. Kent.”

“So are you HYDRA?”

“No.”

“Are you _sure_?”

“Yes.”

“Because it seemed like you were for a moment there.”

“I’m not.” She takes a sip. “I was here before you, Agent Hunter, and I’ll be here long after you’re gone.”

“Well that’s...creepy,” he calls as she leaves.

 

 

 

 

v. Koenig

 

Jemma returns to her bunk to find Agent Koenig waiting outside the door.

“You’re required to retake your polygraph, along with the new recruits you brought in,” he says, agitated, hovering in the doorway as she moves about in the room. “They’re waiting but they said they want you to go first.” She rolls her eyes. It’s an interesting bunch she’s brought with her.

“Must I?”

“It’s an order.”

“On whose authority?” She challenges. There’s no way Coulson would make her do this before a debrief.

Koenig frowns. “You’ve changed. I don’t like it.”

Jemma says nothing to that.

 

 

 

 

vi. Trip

 

It’s Trip that presents her with her newly reauthorized lanyard and badge, as Koenig is busy with a recruit.

“Agent Simmons,” he greets. She prepares for a lashing. Not that Trip’s known for it, but she seems to need to ask everyone for forgiveness.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he says. He’s the first person to actually say that. She’s a little startled by it.

“Thank you,” she murmurs.

“Are _you_ glad to be back?” And he’s smiling ruefully, prepared for a sardonic answer. She raises an eyebrow.

“Skye told me that she ambushed you a little bit.”

“I deserved it.”

He doesn’t affirm or deny this. “So? Are you glad?”

“Ask me again tomorrow.”

He laughs. “I intend to.”

 

 

 

 

vii. Mack

 

“Whoa!” he says, jerking back in surprise when he notices her by his elbow.

“Sorry,” she says, chagrinned. “You’re very large. It’s hard to get your attention.”

“Maybe you’re just really small.”

“I’ve heard this argument before,” she says, slight humor in her voice. He has no idea what she’s referring to, so he shrugs and goes back to working until she’s ready to speak again.

“Trip said you were keeping an eye on Fitz,” she says.

“I was.”

“I just wanted to say thank you.”

He nods once. “He’s a good guy. He just needed someone to talk to.”

She looks mournful. “I know.” She turns to leave, but he speaks again.

“I don’t intend to stop.”

“Good,” she says without looking back.

 

 

 

 

viii. Ward

 

There is a long moment of silence after she tells him what she did. How she used his name as insurance. How they respected her for knowing him. A long moment of silence. Then:

“That was extremely dangerous,” Ward says flatly.

“More dangerous than being tossed in the ocean?”

He blinks, reboots. “Yes. You survived that.”

“I survived this too.”

He can’t disagree.

 

 

 

 

ix. Fitz

 

When she seeks him out, he’s not in the lab. He’s not in his room. He’s on the Bus.

He’s in his bunk, hugging a pillow, waiting.

“I saw May bring you in last night,” he says.

She sits down next to him.

“I was worried you’d been hurt, but she said you fought really well.”

“They taught me a few things,” she says, uncomfortable with the thought of him seeing that side of her.

“Are you…oh, what’s his name, secret agent?”

“James Bond?”

“Yeah, are you James Bond now?”

He still hasn’t looked at her. She’s glad; he’s just worried at what he might see.

“No. I’m still just a scientist.”

“Don’t lie, Simmons,” he admonishes.

“I thought I had gotten better at it,” she claims, trying to pull some lightness out of the air.

“Well. Maybe. _Maybe_ you have. But I still know you better than anyone else does.”

He chooses then to look at her, because he’s always had an earth-shattering sense of timing, and it has always been by accident. She smiles a little.

“Yes, you do.”

He looks away. It’s too much.

She kisses his cheek.

It’s too much.

She knows this. She knows what she’s doing, reminding him of that. She doesn’t quite realize the significance (it’s been seven days – he’s keeping careful count – seven days since he realized he’d been living with a ghost) but she does know what she is doing.

“You cut your hair,” he says, because it’s something to say.

“What do you think?” It couldn't matter less.

“It’s nice,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s good to have a change.”

She smiles.

 


End file.
